Posts Filed Under: automotive

French jackass Remi Gaillard is completely hilarious. The banana peels and the speed camera at the end push this clip over the top!

Mike needs some wheels, so instead of carjacking some random SUV like I have been doing for the past week, we decide to go test drive a Nissan.  While at the dealer, talk quickly turns from the practical 5 door Rogue we came to check out, to the soon to be released company halo car, the Nissan GT-R.  Our sales man, Michael Harris, at Santa Monica Nissan confided in us that none other than Donald Sutherland snatched up the first GT-R hitting these shores.  He also explained it was for his kid, which if I do the math correctly means it could be for Keifer – unlikely because Jack Bauer can afford his own – so that leaves Agnus, Rossif, or Roeg Sutherland.  Mr. Sales Man also let it be known the Donald didn’t blink at the $30,000.00 dealer mark-up.

I’m not envious or anything.

I’m just into the GT-R.  Almost as much as Kazunori Yamauchi.

Wow. It seems in an alternate universe I work for the Pontiac creative agency, Leo Burnett, and somehow convinced everyone it would be cool to make a real-life Spy Hunter ad. I mean seriously, get out of my head, or cut me a check already.

While we’re on the topic of my Spy Hunter fantasies, a dream of mine is to see it properly updated, using high quality graphics. 3D is encouraged, but it must maintain the original top down perspective. Much like the update Capcom is working on for 1942.

Mess around too much with Spy Hunter though, and you’ll end up with what KLOV calls “perhaps the worst sequel in the history of gaming.” And that isn’t even counting the future movie remake with the Rock, and it’s subsequent piss poor video game adaptation.

I love BEAMS T. I love their ‘Art for Everyday’ philosophy. My first trip to Japan I made sure to make a pilgrimage to their flagship store in Harajuku.

BEAMS Co. is now into everything. There’s a BEAMS Records, a BEAMS Modern Living, and even a Uniform Circus BEAMS. It’s nice to see BEAMS spreading their rays of light into multiple arenas. But last week I think they jumped the shark with this BEAMS design:

What the hell is that? The new Subaru Impreza is already having a hard time as it is.  Does it really need to be dressed up like a creamsicle flavored Jelly Belly?

Now this auto fashion blunder inspired me to do a little digging around the Internets, and what I found is even more disturbing.  A Bathing Ape took one of the sexiest cars on the planet, and made it a complete abomination:

This was the 1001 HP, 253 MPH Bugatti Veyron. These hand built cars come in the widest spectrum of color combinations, letting you even customize the supple leather interior in an array of 144 complimentary selections. I have spent hours dreaming up my perfect Veyron, but I am kind of partial to the hyper-rare and paintless Pur Sang version, clothed only in brushed aluminum and clear coated carbon fiber.

But pink on diseased inner colon was never intended be a color option. Ever. Period.

Real life is a lot grittier than Forza 2. No, I’m not talking film noir gritty, I’m talking about thousands of little stones and a tidal wave of dirt and sand gritty. I know this having spent a good half of the weekend vacuuming my car. The first half of the weekend I was tearing around Buttonwillow Raceway in the California desert.

My friends and I planned a track day. One friend just picked up a 2002 BMW M3, the other a 2006 Volvo S60 R. With helmets ready, we got to see what our cars could really do… in the hands of some of the track’s resident racer veterans. We were treated to a taste of the track’s true racing line with some scary hot laps, only then our rides were handed back to us. Some of the turns really required you to build up a fair deal of confidence before you could drive them in anger. 85 MPH around a sweeper seems completely sane in Forza, but when you come face to face with what a tiny misstep could do at that speed, and actually see the damage that would ensue flash before your eyes, it’s another thing entirely.

After three quarters of the day I felt like my C5 and I were really starting to communicate. If I was pushing a little too hard (usually due to attempting a completely asinine line through a turn) it would be conveyed audibly via the tires with room to come to some sort of compromise. The Star Mazda hairpin turn on the other hand proved to be completely different. I’m still trying to figure out what exactly happened, but what I do know is I was coming in fast, and ended up on the inside of the turn, facing the wrong direction, with a mouthful of desert. Without warning, the back-end swung around 180 degrees and kicked up an impressive amount of earth before coming to a stop. The car was covered. And, because it was roasting that day, my windows were wide open. Nice. But we were in one piece. Nothing harmed, except a little pride.

Maybe I should start playing DiRT.

Went to Big Bear Lake last week. It was so beautiful, it almost felt fake. I bet Disneyland modeled their rock facades from the natural outcroppings located around this region. There is something magical about a lake nestled up in the mountains at 7,000 feet.

No, I wasn’t high altitude training with Tito Ortiz or Rampage Jackson (who apparently fit in perfectly with the pristine natural woodland landscape with their grunting and punching), quite the contrary, this trip was all about rest and relaxation. The Jacuzzi in the master bedroom of the log cabin facilitated this quite nicely. As did the arcade in the Village Square! Can you believe an arcade survived?!

Super Bear seems to have fled into the wilderness and is doing quite well, thank you. Skee ball, DDR, Spy Hunter, an array of pinball machines… what more could you ask for? How about some free credits waiting for you in an original Donkey Kong?

The arcade did seem a little light on driving games though. No worries. I got my car fix right outside the door. It happened to also be Bear Big Fun Run 2007. Hot Rods and 60′s muscle cars were overflowing on to the side streets branching off the main village drag. These cars were works of art. It looked as if you could dip your hand into the paint job on some of them. Seeing this perfectly restored Vette inspired me to take it for a couple of hot laps around the Nurburgring in Forza 2 when I got home.

So much for getting back to reality.